Archive All Issues September 1941

You Remember Humboldt?

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of course you do! what a lively camp it was!

Featured in the September 1941 Issue of Arizona Highways

Some of the department heads and their families at Humboldt in 1907 when that camp was one of the busiest copper camps in the West. At center, in black, is Superintendent Hamilton; at his right, in grey, is Manager Oxnam.
Some of the department heads and their families at Humboldt in 1907 when that camp was one of the busiest copper camps in the West. At center, in black, is Superintendent Hamilton; at his right, in grey, is Manager Oxnam.
BY: TOM

IF YOU'VE LIVED IN Arizona for eighteen years or more surely you remember Humboldt. Had you lived here, especially in Yavapai County, thirty-five years ago, you couldn't very well have escaped knowing it. You must have heard of that hottest little copper camp in the Southwest; and heat in this case had nothing to do with temperature within the twin reverbs that rumbled and roared day and night, and the dragon-like converters that coughed orange and purple flame into the dust-chamber.

Humboldt is that tiny spot on today's road map, lying twenty miles east of Prescott on State High 69 (Black Canyon Road) leading to Phoenix, and just south of the cutoff feeding U. S. Route 89 that runs between Prescott and

You Remember

Flagstaff via Jerome, Clarkdale and Oak Creek Canyon.

In the mind of the old-timer and his whiskers didn't have to drag in the dirt the little old hot spot is remembered most vividly as being bounded on the east by El Capitan, on the south by the head of Agua Fria Canyon, far to the west by the Bradshaws and skystabbing Mount Union, and to the north by all of Lonesome Valley.

All of which smacks too much of schoolroom geography, Humboldt was something more than a spot on the map: it was a copper camp with character. True, its character may have been, especially at the outset, a matter around which debate might become heated; still, it was as respectable as any young copper camp in 1906.

Essentially, it was a spot where men worked hard and played hard; so it was no discredit to any of them, if the proceeds of the pay-checks handed out by Paymaster Lewis and cashed by Joe Bethune at the Humboldt Commercial Company where they pushed out the clinking, dull yellow double eagles if these proceeds, more often than not, went straight to the bar and the tables and certain silken receptacles down at Schwanbeck's and similar resorts of glitter and glamour.

These men earned their money at the ore bins and the crushers and rolls in concentrator and sample mill, at the roasters, and at skimming and tapping the furnaces, especially when the blast furnace froze up, mostly at night, when the shifter had to rouse Furnace SuperHumboldt, its greater glory vanished, lives on today. State Highway 69, the Black Canyon Highway, passes through Humboldt's main street. (Max Kegley).

In the hills around Humboldt are many scars of previous mining operations. Humboldt enjoyed several periods of brisk prosperity, may again some day. (Max Kegley).

HUMBOLDT? WHITE

Intendent Yaeger from his sleep. They worked, too, at the general office under Don Kurtz, and in the lab. under Chief Chemist Scofield. General Manager Finney, as head of the 400man plant, was the unofficial mayor of Humboldt; his aide was Superintendent Hamilton, who kept the smoke rolling out of the stacks.

Like every other copper camp, topography permitting, the town was spread all over the scenery. It extended from the sacred precincts of The Hill, almost half way to Dewey, and from the steep banks of the Agua Fria, clear across to the farthest reaches of Cooktown. Tents galore dotted the townsite, though when Humboldt achieved civic consciousness in a matter of a few months, frame stores and dwellings replaced canvas. There was one notable exception in the bakery: this was partly brick, and while such construction was a matter of necessity, it did impart a certain air of permanence.

No liquor was dispensed in the townsite, proper, yet there was one establishment on Main Street that enjoyed loyal, wholesome popularity-Doc Francis' drug store. The Doc's patrons were loyal not so much because his liquid refreshments were wholesome, as it was because his was one of the first drug stores in the Southwest where you could buy almost anything, which made it a popular meeting place; more than that, the genial old boy was always willing to "put it on the cuff 'til pay-day," which was more than they'd do in The Hollow. This made for loyalty.

It wasn't long after the furnaces were blown in and blister copper was being turned out, when the plant became a must-see point on the itinerary of metallurgical engineers and technicians: they came even from Japan serious and inquiring, bespectacled and be-camera-ed. They came to see the oil-fired reverberatory furnaces in action, and to pore over the highly gratifying results of such pioneer smelting practice. Keen interest also centered in the use of waste heat from the furnaces, applied toward making steam for the power house.

These forward-looking practices were not enough to offset the high cost of unloading and handling incoming ore. Thus, even during the Arizona Smelting Company's first operating (Continued to Page Thirty-Nine)